


Hanbō (keep fighting)

by dome_epais, gracicah



Category: Pacific Rim (Movies)
Genre: F/M, Grief/Mourning, Lasting effects of the Drift, Physical Disability, Podfic, Podfic Length: 1-1.5 Hours, Queerplatonic Relationships, Recovery, Trauma, adopting a cat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-04
Updated: 2020-09-04
Packaged: 2021-03-06 15:02:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,652
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26040850
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dome_epais/pseuds/dome_epais, https://archiveofourown.org/users/gracicah/pseuds/gracicah
Summary: “I’m sorry they’re parading you about like this,” Herc told Mako.Mako shook her head. “It’s an honor,” she insisted, repeating the PPDC’s line.A day in Raleigh and Mako's life as they stumble toward healing.
Relationships: Raleigh Becket/Mako Mori
Comments: 10
Kudos: 55
Collections: Pod_Together 2020





	Hanbō (keep fighting)

**Author's Note:**

> From dome_epais: 
> 
> Please note that we use the canonical name of Raleigh and Mako's jaeger three times. This name includes a slur for Romani people.
> 
> With thanks to L, my habitual and extremely patient beta.
> 
> A hanbō is half the size of a bō staff (about six feet, six shaku, or 181 centimeters). The philosophy of this weapon is that if a weapon breaks in half, a warrior must continue to defend themselves with half of their resources.
> 
> It is canon that Mako is descended from a lineage of swordmakers and that her father gave her a hanbō for training before the attack on Tokyo.

Links for download:

[Google Drive](https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Gy-1tPOoNDmAn6sURn5r3-tzsMTCpY3O/view?usp=sharing) * [Internet Archive](https://archive.org/details/hanbo-keep-fighting-by-dome-epais) * [Paraka](http://pod-together.parakaproductions.com/2020/Hanbo%20%28Keep%20Fighting%29%20by%20dome_epais.mp3)

Raleigh half-rouses when Hisako nudges her forehead against his chin. When he sighs and doesn’t move to pet her, she sniffs at his nose - checking that he’s breathing - and plops down to share his pillow. Pressing his temple into Hisako’s rumbling purrs, Raleigh slips away again.

\--

They rocked together on the Pacific waves, teetering between relief and horror, but mostly disbelief. Mako’s arms were the only unshakable certainty in Raleigh’s universe.

The salt-prickling in his eyes overwhelmed the pain of his arm, his ribs. _Everything_ hurt so much that the pins-and-needles in his left leg barely registered. As the helicopters closed in, Raleigh tucked his face against Mako’s hard drivesuit, every exposed inch of skin scrubbed raw by the salt, wind, and sun, and laughed until he cried until he laughed.

\--

The next thing Raleigh knows, the cool air hits him as Mako folds the blanket away from his left leg. He grumbles and noses against Hisako’s side, reluctant to wake. Hisako, the traitor, abandons him to greet Mako so Raleigh hides his face in the pillow he now has all to himself again instead.

“Layabout,” Mako scolds fondly. Her palm folds over the arch of his foot, her other forearm braces against the sole. She pauses, waiting for him.

Without looking, Raleigh straightens his hips, knees, and shoulders, laying flat on the bed. He takes a deep, slow breath in, and nods.

She levers his toes up toward his knee. Raleigh exhales against the strain, trying to engage his muscles and tendons and relearn how to do this on his own.

When she lets him rest, Raleigh blinks up at her and whines, “Can we go easy today? I’m a little tender.”

Mako has already showered and dressed, the streaks in her hair drying from brown to shining gold. She tells him, “Puppy eyes don’t work on me.”

“They used to,” Raleigh huffs.

“No, I’m a cat person,” Mako denies, “just ask Hisako.” She pats his knee in apology, commanding, “Up.” He lifts his leg to let her kneel on the bed. When he puts his foot against her shoulder, she bears his knee down toward his chest.

Raleigh pushes against her, breathing with her, grateful for her weight. So much of Raleigh’s time is taken up with stretches these days. Fighting to keep his flexibility, reclaim his former range of motion.

Mako works him over, methodical but not brutal, never batting an eye at his sometimes theatrical protests. She carefully presses him up against his limits and then a little beyond, drawing him out.

It hurts, but he doesn’t really mind. She gave Gipsy Danger back her heart, so Raleigh figures that this is just the logical endpoint. Mako is determined to give Raleigh back his left side.

At the end of the physical therapy routine, Raleigh’s wide awake, concentrating on the mechanical operation of his body as if he’s deep in a kata form. He struggles to keep his breathing steady, deep, controlled.

Mako touches his temple, hair wet with sweat. “Well done,” she commends him, and pats the top of his head like he’s performed a neat trick. Her nails curve around his ear, raising goosebumps, and Raleigh almost suggests they stay in bed a little longer.

Hisako squirms in between them to demand the same treatment for her ears. Raleigh snorts and grabs for the cane leaning against his nightstand.

It’s time to get the day started.

\--

The physical therapy after Yancy died was brutal. After the medical team was convinced that Raleigh might survive to the end of the week, they began testing all of his extremities for strong, complete signals from his nervous system.

Raleigh ran through every test they administered. He sorted cards into stories, he jumped, he breathed hard into a tube. His left side was covered in geometric parallel burn-out scars, but he wouldn’t hold that against the Pan Pacific Defense Corps.

One of the PPDC medics eventually took pity and told Raleigh that it didn’t really matter how well he responded to the treatment. Without Yancy, Raleigh would never pilot a jaeger again.

As if he needed the reminder.

So Raleigh left and spent five years relearning how to grasp a cup of water in his left hand and hike five miles on his left ankle. They held up fine. Raleigh had no medical insurance to work on their intermittent weakness, but they were fine.

And then he signed on for Operation Pitfall.

\--

Raleigh cracks an egg into a hot pan, listening to the news on the home speaker.

There’s nothing ugent that jumps out at him - of course. He’s still adjusting to the news in a world without Kaiju. There is no emergency PPDC response for Raleigh - or Mako, or Herc, or anyone - to cover.

Raleigh turns the rice cooker on, trying to time it with his spatula flicking the eggs face-down.

He likes this part of living in Japan the most. Their bento wait on the counter, two boxes with open mouths. There’s bok choy sitting in the fridge, unused, that Mako bought just because she was surprised to see it available. Raleigh hasn’t figured out how to use it yet.

After ten years of barracks commissaries and packaged rations, Raleigh is surprised that he can tell the difference between breakfast and lunch. But Mako sure knows, somehow.

\--

The only thing they got in quarantine were toothpaste tubes of nutrients, the kind they used to give to astronauts back before priorities shifted. Raleigh choked the stuff down because, well, he had survived on worse. Mako didn’t comment on the taste, but she didn’t say much at all right after they closed the Breach.

She barely ate for two days after they ordered her to speak at Pentecost’s funeral.

Mako argued against it as strongly as she dared, at the time, but she had just lost her protection from those pulling rank over her. Raleigh watched from his side of the decontamination tent as Mako scheduled video calls with one officer or diplomat after another and questioned their decision-making process.

The PPDC and United Nations informed Mako that, as Pentecost’s adopted daughter, she would be honored to participate in the ceremony.

When Mako asked whether Jake Pentecost would be speaking, no one could confirm his whereabouts. So, yeah, Raleigh guessed it would look pretty weird if the PPDC couldn’t offer the world at least one of their heroically self-sacrificing Marshal Pentecosts’ kids. Especially when both Mako and Jake went into the Ranger Academy and only one came out the other side.

By the time Mako and Raleigh were let out of quarantine, the funeral had metastasized into an international conference. The news stations ran twenty-four-hour livestreams of the celebration that overwhelmed the streets of Hong Kong for weeks as millions raised their voices in gratitude. The PPDC would never have a better opportunity to parley their anti-Kaiju operations into a peacetime defensive posture.

The morning of the dedication, Raleigh limped around behind Mako, left arm bound tightly to his healing ribs, as Mako went to retrieve Pentecost’s personal effects.

Herc met them in Pentecost’s old office. Although he was still the Acting Marshal, he hadn’t given the bare space any personal touches.

“It’s good to see you, Mako,” Herc greeted her, inclining his head rather than saluting her with his bad arm.

Mako bowed low and called him, “Marshal Hansen.” She hesitated, face hidden behind the blue shocks in her hair, her breath suddenly coming in a sharp gasp.

Raleigh - _Mako_ \- had a memory of congratulating her sensei on his promotion to Marshal. He had tucked his - her - _their_ hair behind their ear and told them he would always be their sensei.

Herc gracefully covered Mako’s moment of silence with a nod to Raleigh. “And you look like shit.”

“Well, you look beautiful, sir.” Raleigh shrugged with his right side, still figuring out a way to stand that hurt the least.

Mako straightened up, pretending her eyes were dry.

Herc showed them to the boxes of Pentecost’s things. “I’m sorry they’re parading you about like this,” Herc told Mako as she passed a hand over the top of a picture frame.

Mako shook her head. “It’s an honor,” she insisted, repeating the PPDC’s line. The photograph showed Mako and Jake as gangly teens, flanked by Pentecost and his co-pilot Tamsin, thin and sickly from a round of chemo.

Raleigh said, “Thanks for having all this ready.”

Herc’s lips pinched in, suddenly bitter. “Don’t thank _me_.”

Raleigh looked at the boxes again, neatly packed and waiting. Proof that Pentecost hadn’t expected to survive his last mission.

He wondered if Chuck had packed up his bunk or left it for his father to clean up. Maybe Chuck planned to close the Breach and return as the conquering hero. He would have revelled in the kind of adoring attention that Mako was facing like the gallows.

No wonder Herc looked like he’d aged ten years in the last ten days.

Later, Mako did everything that the PPDC expected of her. She stood in front of an arena of thousands and spoke about Pentecost’s distinguished record as a Ranger and then as Marshal of the Anchorage and Hong Kong Shatterdomes. His bravery and dedication to closing the Breach and ending the Kaiju threat.

Raleigh was the only one that noticed she said nothing about Pentecost as a father or sensei.

\--

After breakfast, Mako has a scheduled video chat with Jake. This was his concession when they negotiated over his less legal hobbies: as long as he stays in contact, Mako won’t call in favors to track Jake down.

“I’m barely scrapping at all these days. Just hanging out, yeah?” Raleigh overhears as he putters around the apartment watering plants, “Parties and all the drinks I want. All I’ve got to do is drop my name.”

Mako starts to scold, “That name is--” before biting her tongue. Raleigh’s heard this fight before. Pentecost had never been able to train that short temper out of her.

Jake’s heard it all, too, and he gets defensive fast. “Name’s got to be good for something, right? Hasn’t done me much good so far.”

Finishing with the last hanging terrarium, Raleigh juggles the spray bottle and cane between his hands, swinging the cane up and catching it midair from long practice.

“Nevermind,” Mako sighs, “I shouldn’t have said anything. I’m preoccupied because I have to give a speech later today.”

Jake says, “Uh-huh,” with supreme disinterest.

Raleigh dodges Hisako’s attempts to trip him as he heads to the kitchen to set out her breakfast.

Mako offers, “It’s the tenth anniversary of the attack on Tokyo.”

Raleigh takes his time washing out Hisako’s bowl with the tap turned down low, eavesdropping shamelessly.

Receiving no response, Mako tentatively adds, “When your father--”

“Yeah, I fucking know, don’t I?” Jake interrupts with a snarl. “So you’ve got to give another speech about what a fucking massive hero he was. Who cares? Ought to have the script memorized by now.”

Raleigh leaves the bowl in the sink to limp into the sitting room. He hears the musical tone of the connection cutting out as Mako protests, “Jake--”

But he’s already gone.

Mako drops her head back against the couch to stare up at the ceiling, knuckles turning white around the tablet.

Raleigh crosses the room and tugs on the tablet until she slowly releases it from her grasp. He sets both the tablet and the cane on the table and carefully lowers his body down beside her. The worry and tension are obvious around her mouth, in her shoulders.

The morning sun shines through the blinds, picking up the gold in her hair. It’s the gold of the sun eclipsed by Coyote Tango that had dazzled their eyes as the smoke cleared.

When Raleigh’s fingers touch the back of her right hand, she turns it to rest palm up on her thigh. He starts a gentle massage, more of a grounding exercise, squeezing each knuckle of each finger in turn.

On the third repetition, Mako curls to rest her forehead against his shoulder, soaking in the comfort. She switches hands, pushing her left directly between both of his, and he starts the exercise from the beginning.

He could tell her that Jake is only seventeen and running wild, but she knows that. She and Jake are separated by a deep crevasse of resentment that Mako doesn’t know how to bridge. She was old enough to work with Pentecost in his element at the PPDC while Jake, feeling left out or overshadowed or _something_ , acted up and got himself expelled from the Academy. Personally escorted out by Pentecost himself.

They have a hundred other teenage memories like that, minor things that add up into something too large to overcome. In her heart, Mako struggles to reconcile her sensei with the man who was Jake’s father.

Mako and Raleigh sit together for a few more minutes, even when Hisako voices her complaints that Raleigh hasn’t served her breakfast yet. He’ll get to it. They don’t have to leave for a while yet.

\--

It took a month after the funeral for Mako to make contact with Jake and another for him to agree to a face-to-face meeting. Raleigh packed up his things when she did, looking forward to a change in scenery.

Raleigh hadn’t had a lot to do besides let his ribs rest, but now he felt about ninety-five percent healed.

He clumsily barked his left shin against a protruding railing on the walk down from the helicopter pad and bit back a curse. Alright, so maybe he was around ninety percent.

Mako glanced back in concern and waited at the bottom of the stairs in case he stumbled. Raleigh put his hand on her shoulder but avoided leaning any weight against her if he could help it.

Jake refused to give the address where he was living - or squatting, Raleigh assumed. Probably in one of the mansions abandoned when those with the means had moved as far east as they could make it. Instead, the kid met them at Venice Beach, sprawling in a lounge chair wearing a gold bathrobe and the ugliest pair of sunglasses Raleigh had ever seen.

There wasn’t much family resemblance.

Mako said, “Hello, Jake,” so hopeful and uncertain that Raleigh’s heart gave a pang.

He stuck his hands in his pockets and took a few steps toward the water, giving them space. Maybe he could let the rolling waves drown out the conversation. There were no other people in sight, despite the mild breeze and pleasant weather. Years after the attack on Santa Monica, the tide still deposited congealed clumps of Kaiju Blue in the sand.

Raleigh heard Jake drawl, “Hey, Mori,” too relaxed, and his stomach clenched with apprehension. From Mako’s memories, he knew she had never seen her kid brother drunk. Before today.

Raleigh turned around to see Mako hold out a picture frame. “I brought this for you,” Mako told Jake. “There’s a set of medals, as well.”

The kid reached for the picture, uncoordinated, and pushed the sunglasses up to his forehead to squint. “God, Tamsin looks like a corpse,” he exclaimed with exaggerated disgust and dropped the frame in the sand at Mako’s feet. With an arch of his eyebrows, the sunglasses fell back into place.

Mako jerked forward as if to catch the picture, then straightened her back with a rigid, burning fury. She drew in a deep breath to shout, “ _Why--_ ”

Then she deflated like she took a hit to the solar plexus. Her shoulders slumped forward, her head dropped.

Jake, braced against the arms of his lounge chair, frowned at this deviation from the script.

Raleigh knew the routine too well. He was a little brother - or he used to be. It was so easy to provoke the older kids who had to be on their best behavior because they were more responsible. Yancy used to --

Well. It didn’t matter.

Instead of yelling, Mako repeated, “Why?” very quietly.

“Why?” Jake echoed in tipsy confusion. With a burst of energy, he pushed himself out of the far side of his chair, kicking up one skinny leg too high and flailing around in his ridiculous golden robe. His sunglasses went flying. “ _Fuck off,_ that’s why! What did you come here for? To give me his fucking medals?”

Raleigh gauged the distance between them, trying to work out whether he would need to intervene somehow. With the lounge chair between them, someone was going to end up twisting an ankle.

Mako stared at Jake, brows pinched together, and protested, “I had to come.”

“Haven’t you done enough?” Jake accused. “When’s it going to be enough, Mako? What’s it going to take to keep you from hounding me down?”

She opened her mouth and hesitated. Raleigh knew that there wasn’t anything that would stop her. She had never considered leaving Jake to his own - sometimes criminal - devices.

Jake flung his arms wide. “He’s gone, alright? He’s gone, so we’re nothing to each other.”

Mako shook her head, unable to answer.

Scoffing in pure teenaged disgust, Jake swung around and walked away, pulling a flask from the pocket of his robe. “Leave me the fuck alone,” he called over his shoulder.

Raleigh sighed and Mako turned her big eyes on him. He advised, “Let him sleep it off. He’ll come around eventually.”

“But he’s _right,_ ” Mako said, choking on the admission. “Without Sensei connecting us we’re - we’re _nothing._ ”

“No,” Raleigh soothed, walking to her, his steps awkward in the uneven sand. He pulled her against his chest and she started crying, really weeping, for the first time since the Breach. He rubbed her back and made the kind of comforting noises he would have wanted to hear in her place.

Jake was long gone by the time Mako calmed down enough to listen when Raleigh told her, “You’re not nothing to each other. Okay? You’re family.”

“Yes,” Mako agreed, wiping her red, swollen eyes. She leaned against Raleigh’s chest again, staring down at their feet, regrouping. Her breathing hitched for a second and she asked, “Raleigh?”

“Hmm,” he answered.

She pointed down. The top of his right boot was clean, but his left was caked in lurid Kaiju Blue. “Have you been dragging your foot?”

This was how they realized the extent of his nerve damage.

\--

The foot drop isn’t so bad, most days. He needs the cane to navigate stairs or uneven ground, but he can almost forget about it the rest of the time. The exercises help to keep the strength in his muscles while the nerves repair themselves.

Hopefully.

As a rule, Mako and Raleigh keep to their neighborhood and avoid the center of Tokyo, but Mako’s the guest of honor for the memorial ceremony. The PPDC had accepted the invitation on her behalf, as usual.

As a six-foot blond guy in Japan, Raleigh sticks out in any crowd these days, even before considering the cane. But today, Mako is the one being observed through sidelong glances on the train.

Everyone knows her face as the Japanese hero of Operation Pitfall. She has made far more public appearances on behalf of the PPDC than anyone else, including Newt and Hermann. (Raleigh gets the impression that most Japanese nationals politely indulge him as Mako’s ride-along sidekick, if they recognize him as anything other than an American, which suits him just fine.)

Mako tolerates the attention but turns her face to the window, discouraging any interactions. She holds the ceiling railing and stands over Raleigh’s seat as if he’s the one that needs a shield.

Raleigh hums one of those popular songs you can never get out of your head and taps the end of the cane on the toe of her boot to keep time. He gets half a smile out of her, but mostly she gazes out at the approaching city skyline. The jagged remains of skyscrapers have been ground down and capped like rotten teeth.

Seconds before the train reaches downtown Tokyo, an old woman suddenly rises from her seat, bows, and tells Mako, “Please care for yourself as you do us.”

Shocked, Mako doesn't react to the opening train doors. She lets Raleigh guide her out to the platform, staring over her shoulder.

Dozens of passengers stare back as the train pulls away.

“What was that?” Raleigh wonders once the train pulls away, sure that he missed a couple of the old woman’s words.

“It’s a saying to offer condolences,” Mako says, still distracted, “while showing concern for the recipient.”

Raleigh goes to take her hand but Mako pulls away. With a deep breath, she lifts her chin in a challenge and exits the station to face Tokyo.

\--

Herc and Max, Chuck’s bulldog, met them before the flight out with Herc’s replacement in tow. The Shatterdome had gradually shifted from euphoric celebration to standard operations. The new Marshal would focus on retrieving the scraps of fallen jaegers from the South China Sea and Pacific Ocean.

China wasn’t happy to let the last three surviving jaeger pilots out of Hong Kong, but the international media was ravenous for interviews and first-person accounts. Newt and Hermann had already published three papers as quickly as they could be peer-reviewed and made a whirlwind tour of North America. It took a little longer for the PPDC to arrange for Herc Hansen’s honorable release from duties.

The new Marshal gave Raleigh one of those looks that he once brushed off as intercultural miscommunication, but now recognized as veiled disapproval. The guy drew Mako into a discussion that Raleigh couldn’t really follow with his pidgin Chinese. He gleaned that the Marshal was using a very respectful tone to grill Mako on her future plans as they took several more steps away.

Herc leaned in to mutter confidentially, “You make them nervous.”

“Who, me?” Raleigh asked, using the new cane to carefully lower himself to the deck in order to pet Max. He had approximately zero power or responsibility in this new post-Kaiju world. The only thing on his schedule were joint engagements with Mako, and that was just because she roped him in on everything she could.

“Really,” Herc insisted. “You were honorably discharged years ago and they’re all acutely aware that you don’t have to follow their orders.”

Shrugging uncomfortably, Raleigh said, “I mean, I haven’t refused to do anything.” He let Max lick his hands and forearms as the dog’s rump wagged in excitement.

Raising his eyebrows, Herc added, “ _Yet._ And the higher-ups have been avoiding asking you for anything if they can help it. No one wants to find out where your line in the sand is.”

“I don’t, uh,” Raleigh said, his hand still on Max’s head in surprise. Max impatiently tried to muscle his way into Raleigh’s lap and lick Raleigh’s face. “Agh, Max! I don’t know. I don’t think I have a line?”

“Is that what you think?” Herc began nudging Max with his knee. “C’mon, shift it. Give Mister ‘She’s-My-Copilot’ some room.”

Struggling to plant the cane correctly to get back on his feet, Raleigh protested, “That was different.”

Herc rolled his eyes in exasperation. “Different how, exactly? The two of you found something you wanted and made _Stacker Pentecost_ reverse a public decision in under twelve hours.”

Raleigh wanted to argue, but his head turned toward Mako, checking in out of habit. At the same moment, listening attentively to the new Marshal twenty feet away, Mako slid her eyes over to Raleigh.

The question, Raleigh realized when their eyes met, was about drawing a line in the sand together. In the three months since Operation Pitfall, no one had questioned letting Mako bring Raleigh everywhere using PPDC resources. There had been no suggestion that Raleigh and Mako would be separated by more than a mile.

Mako joined the PPDC for Pentecost and gave it the same uncomplicated loyalty. She would never think to question an order. The PPDC, on the other hand, would gladly subject Mako to the kind of worldwide exposure and exploitation that Raleigh could only imagine. And Mako would go along without complaint until it interfered with Raleigh directly.

For now, Mako’s superiors were tip-toeing around their biggest public relations asset because her connection to Raleigh made her unpredictable.

There were no known limits to what she would do for him.

 _Oh,_ Raleigh thought, his chest tight, fingers numb on the cane’s handle.

“Starting to catch on?” Herc guessed with a smirk.

Even with their jaeger on the other side of the Breach, Mako and Raleigh were still copilots. They were in it together. Partners for life.

There should really be a better name for that, Raleigh thought, dazed.

\--

The ceremony is quiet - the disorienting silence of thousands of people in what used to be the beating heart of a city. The President bows to the stone and reads his prepared speech, a parade of formal Japanese phrases that roll over Raleigh without penetrating.

The memorial stone is at the center of where Onibaba fell.

Just over there --

_\-- the street she ran down, one socked foot tripping over chunks of concrete and steel. The mouth of the alley. Behind the ash, Coyote Tango and its pilot waited for her to gather her courage and emerge from hiding. Her sensei smiled like she was for him and he was for her. By then, he had already sustained the radiation damage that would have killed him if he hadn’t --_

_\-- hadn’t --_

Raleigh grabs for Mako’s elbow, reeling from the images. He feels queasy and inside-out, as if they’re back in the Drift, fighting a strong undertow. Two streets and ten years away, a little girl watched a waterfall of glass crash down and swallow her parents whole.

But he can’t be there. He has to be here, now.

He flounders for something to bring himself back into his own mind. If Yancy --

Mako puts her hand over his on her arm and squeezes his fingers. She’s trying to be discreet, but she knows how Yancy used to ground him - of course she knows. He searches her eyes for a sign that she is having the same reaction to this place, swimming against the same tide of devastation.

She’s hidden her emotions in a box so tightly sealed that Raleigh can’t be sure.

Too soon, it’s her turn to speak, and Raleigh has to peel his fingers away to release the sleeve of her uniform.

She approaches the memorial, bows deeply, and gives her speech from memory, addressing the stone in a loud, clear voice. She begins, “For ten years, the people of Tokyo have proven their resilience and perseverance…”

Mako practices her speeches at home, so Raleigh doesn’t have to concentrate too much to parse her words. Instead, he surveys the audience. There are people packed tightly into every inch of the square, each one solemnly accepting Mako’s words.

When Raleigh thinks back to the cheers and applause in Hong Kong only last year, the stoic faces of these survivors seem to come from a different world. The relief of closing the Breach has given way to the long work of rebuilding for a future that many had given up as lost.

“Recovery has been gradual and sometimes frustrating,” Mako says (or so she had translated for Raleigh). “Removing the rubble and stabilizing the remains of damaged skyscrapers are already inestimable accomplishments. That day changed everything for--”

She loses the rhythm of the sentence. Raleigh wonders if it sounds like a stutter to the other listeners, whether anyone else can hear the tremor and strain as she recovers. “Onibaba redirected Japan’s priorities. We dedicate this monument to those lost in the attack and the survivors striving to honor their memory.”

She bows again and steps away, comes back to where Raleigh has one of the very few chairs. There - he catches it in her shoulders, in her stiff knees. She’s resisting the urge to run.

But another speaker is already approaching the stone, so instead Mako stands by Raleigh and holds herself ramrod straight at attention like a docked jaeger waiting for her next mission.

\--

The press tour lasted six days or six weeks or six months.

Newt greeted every new face with, “Hey! I saved the fucking world! Hermann here, he helped!”

Hermann’s sour wince was comfortingly predictable, the straight-man in their vaudevillian double act. “It was the culmination of thousands of years of man-hours and and uncountable calculations--”

“--Oh, uncountable? All that calculus can’t even estimate an average, Hermann?--”

And so on, each reacting to the other’s energy like an overheating nuclear core.

The whole thing was a circus. The merry-go-round of sitting across from one interviewer after another quickly became first disorienting and then somehow monotonous.

The PPDC scheduled the interviews. Newt, Hermann, and Mako were still active and Herc was bound by his security clearance. Raleigh, on the other hand, was just along for the ride.

Repeating so many answers took a lot of the fun out of some stories. Newt and Hermann had a natural back-and-forth patter and never got tired of talking, but Mako and Raleigh....

Well, Raleigh at least had media training from back when he went on shows like this with Yancy. Mako was an engineer who spoke the truth bluntly and without embellishment.

“How did you meet?”

In the rain, just a few days before it all happened.

“When did you know you were drift compatible?”

In the usual way. The PPDC had a process of matching all candidates against each other.

Talking about the Otachi/Leatherback double event in Hong Kong came out like an after-action report, and Operation Pitfall…

The radio communications from that operation had been released to the public with the same pomp and circumstance as if they landed on the Moon. Everyone had heard Stacker tell Mako, “You can always find me in the Drift.”

And everyone had also heard Mako tell him, _“Sensei, I love you.”_

The first time an interviewer asked Mako about her last words to Pentecost, she froze up hard.

Raleigh blurted out the first thing that came to mind - “So you can relive strong memories in the Drift, that’s what Rangers mean about finding each other in there.”

The interviewer tried to rephrase the question for a stonily silent Mako. Raleigh found himself talking inanely about the mechanics of a Drift. Anything to run out the clock until the interviewer was forced to move on.

They both received a pointed invitation to see a PPDC psychologist for grief counseling. Alternatively, they could prepare more satisfactory answers to questions about Operation Pitfall.

Mako started rehearsing her answers until the memories were nothing more than facts to rattle off.

\--

Raleigh lets Mako set their pace walking home from the train station. She ignores the curious glances from passers-by, keeps her eyes narrowly focused on her path. Determined to move forward.

She hasn’t said a word since leaving Tokyo.

“What’s up next?” Raleigh asks her when they turn down their own street. Their house is just a few blocks away.

Mako answers flatly, “Debrief.” She’s trying to control her tone, but she’s not exactly looking forward to it. Her face is set, her back stiff, her steps measured and even as she marches back to do her duty.

The energy and hope and stubbornness that first convinced him she was his copilot are at a low ebb. He wishes she would smile, but he can’t imagine how to make that happen. Today has been a heavy weight to carry.

Usually they can share that load - that’s what copilots are _for._ But lately...

Little by little, Raleigh has built a quiet place to heal. He waters his houseplants and pulls weeds in the tiny herb garden. He cooks. He pets Hisako and tries not to be jealous when she picks Mako’s lap over his. Sometimes he thinks about the past and about Yancy, carefully, like pressing on a fading bruise.

But Mako hasn’t been able to heal. Part of her is still standing vigil at Pentecost’s funeral, facing an arena of grateful civilians while she pokes at the absence of the most important person in her life like a pulled tooth.

Raleigh stops walking, struck by the realization that Mako is still chasing the rabbit, unable to surface.

They’re out of alignment in a way that he never thought was possible outside the Drift.

Mako pauses beside him, looking up at him with red-rimmed, exhausted eyes. “Raleigh?”

There’s a tangle of words bubbling up in him that he’s been pushing away and suppressing for too long. He has the wild thought that he could take Mako by the hand and start running and never stop until they have a new home and new names and a new life.

But Hisako is waiting for them. His plants will need to be pruned soon, when the weather turns. He really loves so many parts of their life here, together, but on days like today that doesn’t feel like enough.

Instead of saying the thing he never wants to say to her, Raleigh urges, “Come to the dojo with me.”

She blinks and objects, “The call is scheduled soon. There isn’t time.”

“It can wait,” Raleigh tells her, and wills it to be true. “I just want --” _you to be happy._ But he can’t say that, either.

He takes a deep, slow breath and realizes that his hands are raised, almost touching her shoulders. She’s concerned, now, and steps closer without hesitation, her forehead finding his collarbone. Raleigh wraps his free arm around her shoulders, the fabric of her uniform rough and too-familiar against his skin. Her arms creep up, palms pressing into his back, pulling them closer together.

He sets his cheek against her crown and breathes in the smell of her shampoo. Lets it anchor him in the here and now. “I need to settle back into myself a little,” he explains in a low murmur. “I had an intense Drift surge back there.”

She nods into his chest. She knows. She saw the way he was sucked into her past.

Raleigh holds her there, hoping. He tries to brace himself for when she steps back and refuses to play hooky from her PPDC obligations.

After a long deliberation, she squeezes him tighter and says, “Let me change and get my cane.”

He breathes out. There are no limits to what she’d do for him.

That’s why he has to be so careful about asking.

\--

The press tour had long stretches of empty time that were still somehow too short to escape and do any sightseeing. Neither Raleigh nor Mako had been to Paris before, but they didn’t get any closer to the Eiffel Tower than seeing it out of the hotel conference room’s window.

Newt handled the enforced downtime the worst.

Herc and Mako were wrestling with grief and were in the habit of following orders. Hermann could occupy himself for hours with math equations.

But Newt’s work was physical and non-portable and suddenly obsolete, so he spent every minute between appointments bouncing off the walls. He built towers out of the complimentary snacks and then complicated Rube Goldberg machines that knocked Hermann’s pen out of his hand.

Raleigh could deal with the hurry-up-and-wait schedule that all soldiers encountered, though he paced like a caged animal, flipping the cane from hand to hand.

This time, Newt was carefully stacking up the directory binders and Gideon Bibles from what seemed like every hotel room in Seattle. The tower was taller than his head.

Raleigh made another turn and paced to the other end of the room. He was figuring out how to catch the cane’s handle around the blade of his hand and spin back up until it slapped into his palm. _Step, spin, step, slap._

All the news stories invoked the dozens of jaeger pilots who fell in the line of duty. Pentecost and Chuck Hansen were now lumped under the same heading - “the heroes who gave their lives to hold back the Kaiju threat.” The phrase made Raleigh’s stomach turn.

_Step, spin, step, slap._

He passed the table where Hermann scribbled math symbols across three different notebooks and Mako worked through PPDC paperwork.

Heroes. Yancy didn’t die in a valiant effort to save the world. He died because they saved a fishing trawler and Knifehead got the jump on them. Yancy died scared and helpless, a little boy losing the fight against the monster under the bed.

_Step, spin, step, slap._

What about the rangers that were medically relieved of duty? Tamsin Sevier died in her hospital bed, weak and gasping. Would she be remembered as a hero? How about the ranger candidates and mechanics that died in accidents, their records sealed and top secret?

He circled around behind Herc’s chair. Max sleepily followed his progress with droopy bulldog eyes.

_Step, spin, step, slap._

And Raleigh? What if he had slipped and fallen from the top of the Wall of Life - would he have become little more than a statistic like any of the hundreds or thousands of anonymous workers desperate for rations?

_Step, spin --_

As he came up on the table again, Mako snaked her hand out to seize Hermann’s cane and bring it up toward Raleigh’s as it smacked into his palm.

His fingers closed on the shaft and he raised the cane defensively. “Whoa!” Raleigh called, caught off guard.

Mako snapped, “Enough!” and took another swing. Her chair fell sideways and folded up when she lunged out of it toward him.

“What in bloody fucking hell?” Hermann exclaimed.

They fell into the footwork instantly, Raleigh backing away and circling to the left, Mako advancing to the right. He sent her one low sweep, testing out his reach, but she lifted that leg and brought her cane up under his arm. He tried to trap it against his body and Mako rammed forward until the handle jammed painfully into his shoulder.

“Uh, guys,” Newt stuttered from somewhere behind Raleigh.

Raleigh blocked a hand strike. “Mako!”

“Can’t you just,” Mako punctuated her words with more shots at the body, “sit,” Raleigh blocked her clumsily with his left hand, his right pinning her weapon, “ _still!”_

Newt said again, closer, “Guys!”

Mako had backed Raleigh up against Newt’s tower of books. He couldn’t retreat further, and she anticipated and blocked his maneuver to the side. She had always been faster, her advantage over his height and bulk.

“Mako!” Raleigh repeated, really starting to worry. Sure, maybe pacing was annoying, but it was unnerving that she had exploded with no warning.

She chopped at the tendons of his right hand, popping his fingers open reflexively. The cane thumped to the floor. She had won.

They both paused, breathing hard. Mako’s mouth was twisted in a grimace, her eyebrows pinched. She stared at her hands like they had disobeyed her.

Newt and Hermann gaped at them. Herc looked like he knew what Mako was about to say.

“I think,” she started very slowly and quietly, slipping into Japanese, “that I would like to go home now.”

That was a relief. Raleigh was ready to ditch this trip weeks ago.

\--

The dojo they frequent is close to the house, an old building maintained with care. There is a centuries-old tree hemmed in by a wooden fence in the cramped yard. Public classes are held in the evening and most private lessons are arranged for the morning, so Mako and Raleigh stop by in the afternoons if they can.

The woman that runs the school is older, maybe around the age Raleigh’s parents would be, if they were still alive. She carries herself with the grace and poise of any instructor at the Academy. Like her hair, her gi has worn from black to gray at the knees and elbows.

“Ikeda-sama,” Mako greets with a bow.

Ikeda smiles but does not interrupt her kata, every movement precisely executed. She welcomes them with a fond, “Mori-san, Beckett-san. Come in, the mats are free.”

Raleigh bows as he passes through the doorway without speaking. He can skate by in plenty of situations by pretending to be the dumb American with a poor grasp of Japanese, but he doesn’t like to call Ikeda by the ‘-sama’ honorific. He’s pretty sure that it’s wrong and shows an exaggerated or inappropriate amount of respect, and he wouldn’t want to insult Ikeda after she’s been so accommodating.

He’s also pretty sure he knows why Mako uses it; in her world, only one person carried the title ‘sensei.’

\--

The PPDC dragged its feet getting them a transport away from the press tour, so Raleigh ended up booking them onto a series of commercial flights that took the long way around the world to get to Japan.

No one was planning to fly over the Pacific Ocean anytime soon.

They had hours and hours to talk between the connections and longer hauls. During one take-off, Mako leaned until her breath fogged up the window and observed, “She was about this tall.”

Raleigh looked out at the ground dropping hundreds of feet away. “Yeah,” he said, getting a lump in his throat. He had to say goodbye to Gipsy Danger all over again.

“We don’t have to stay in Japan,” Mako offered during a different leg of the journey. “We could end up in Alaska.”

“Nah,” Raleigh shrugged. “I’ve walked along enough of it. There’s nothing left for me there.”

He wondered if she remembered what he said right before Operation Pitfall - that he never really thought about the future until he met her.

Either way, she held his hand through most of the trip.

\--

The dojo is silent. The bustle of cars and city life can barely penetrate the walls.

Their shoes stay behind in the genkan. They run through their stretching routine fast and easy, Mako bracing the sole of her right foot against Raleigh’s left.

He awkwardly contorts his toes to nip at the tops of hers. She rolls her eyes and gives his ankle a gentle kick.

She already looks better.

Being in the dojo is good for both of them. It’s a place for focus and mindfulness and coming back to fundamentals. No one can enter the Drift if they have not spent time alone in their own head, no distractions.

They begin to spar with deliberate, meditative movements.

\--

Mako asked a few more times whether he wanted to travel or see more of Japan before settling on the house. He couldn’t convince her to let it go - until he did.

“That’s a cat,” Mako said warily, eyeing the cage door of the pet carrier.

Raleigh laughed. “I hope so. That’s what I asked for, and my Japanese isn’t that bad.”

Every towel they owned was spread across their bathroom floor and the food dish and litter box still had price stickers. Mako sat up on the rim of the bathtub, hugging her knees to her chest like Hisako was going to scratch her toes off.

A fluffy white tail flickered out of the carrier as Hisako rearranged herself. Raleigh craned his head to make eye contact where she lay like a dragon in a cave, leaning back so his shoulder rested against Mako’s hip.

“I’m more of a dog person.” Mako pulled her fingernails through Raleigh’s hair and teased, “So loyal. Good company. Always happy to see me.”

“Well, I like cats,” Raleigh sighed, closing his eyes. “They’d be fine on their own, but they’ll let you take care of them, too.” She rubbed his ear and he tipped his chin up. “Just have to wait for them to warm up to you.”

She stopped asking if he was sure about where he wanted to be.

\--

Their sparring matches always feel like dancing.

He knows her style and knows where she’ll go for the next two, three, four moves. He can rise to meet her or fall back to give her space. She allows him to fully develop his forms and he gives her the same consideration.

When Mako lets her competitive streak show, the world narrows down to only the two of them, their bodies, and their weapons. Raleigh feels like he can read every thought that crosses her mind.

It’s the closest they can get to the Drift.

And even though they spend every day together, even though she’s such a fundamental component of his life--

He just feels like he can never get enough of her, or give her enough of himself. But he’s willing to keep trying.

When he charges, she flips him over her shoulder in one fluid motion. He hits the mat on his side and rolls to splay his arms out, chest heaving.

The heel of her cane presses lightly against his neck. Her stance over him is solid, rooted to the ground. The streaks in her hair stick to the sweat on her face, painting her cheeks gold, and she’s bursting with energy.

When he swallows, his Adam’s apple catches against the cane, and he is fully present here, in this moment. He lets it spool out, wanting to stay as long as he can.

She’s so powerful and confident and _alive,_ and he’s so in love with her that it’s actually giving him a stitch in his side.

“Time, time,” he calls, “gimme a sec.”

Mako lifts the cane and frowns for a moment before hiding it away. She’s breathing hard, but she’s not ready for a break.

Raleigh struggles to sit up. “Wait, no, we can keep going.” When he pushes himself up with his left arm, his wrist gives way and he needs to catch himself on his elbow.

“Raleigh,” Mako chides and kneels to check on him.

“It’s fine,” he assures her, “I just forgot for a second.” He leans back on his right arm instead of standing. His cane fell a few feet away, too far to reach easily.

There’s no point in getting back on his feet, anyway. Raleigh tries not to favor his left side, but Mako can’t seem to help it. She doesn’t press the attack as quickly, doesn’t sweep that ankle or grapple that knee. And right now, there’s absolutely no way she’ll keep sparring with him.

\--

They found a paved square with low foot traffic after moving into the neighborhood. The flat surface was better for Raleigh’s foot than grass would be, but they couldn’t drop each other to the deck. Good for the basic exercise, at least.

They trained with canes instead of jō staffs. The reach was shorter but the curved handle opened up plenty of fancy turns and hand-trading. Raleigh could practice the flourishes absentmindedly, trying to make this unfamiliar damaged body feel like his own.

Ikeda came upon them after a few sessions. (She would later admit that word spread quickly about _the_ Mako Mori training in the area, and she wanted to see for herself.)

Raleigh noticed their audience first and nodded to direct Mako’s attention. Mako tossed her hair out of her face and disregarded the intrusion until the end of the points match.

When they reached a natural stopping point, Ikeda introduced herself and her expertise. She observed, “You’re new to the cane.”

“Yeah, we’re more used to jō,” Raleigh shrugged, self-conscious about his foot and his sweaty workout clothes and his rough accent. “We’re working on adapting to the shorter length.”

“Yes, I see,” Ikeda acknowledged with kind humor. She asked Mako, “You’ve trained with the hanbō, as well?”

The word made the blood pound in Raleigh’s ears. _Mako’s father gave them their first hanbō, one link in a chain of swordmakers reaching back many generations -- Raleigh consciously uncoupled his identity from Mako’s remembered self -- after Onibaba, she devoted hours to the forms her father taught her, terrified that each forgotten detail erased another part of her._

“...Yes,” Mako confirmed after a tense pause. “Not enough, I’m sorry to say.” The polite turn of phrase and self-effacement clued Raleigh in about Ikeda’s higher social rank.

“Would you like to become more familiar with it?” Ikeda offered.

Raleigh asked, “Which? The cane or the hanbō?”

Ikeda smiled at them. “For two heroes of the Kaiju War, I think I can offer both.” She made a show of looking around the square and added, “As well as some privacy.”

\--

Mako sits down with Raleigh and drops her cane by his hand. “Wind-down stretches,” she prompts, “before you stiffen up.”

“You’re not done,” Raleigh argues. “C’mon, Mako.”

She gives him a press tour smile. “I’ll be fine.”

“Just because I can’t keep up--”

“Don’t say that,” she snaps, pulling her arm across her chest to stretch her shoulder.

Raleigh huffs, frustrated, but the disagreement will only escalate if he pushes.

From behind them, Ikeda asks, “Mori-san, would you be interested in a match?”

When they look over their shoulders, Ikeda has two hanbō, one held out in invitation.

\--

Hisako leapt onto Raleigh’s stomach on her way to curl up between them, jolting him out of sleep with a grunt. “Menace,” he grumbled.

“Raleigh?” Mako whispered. “Are you asleep?”

“‘Course not,” he muttered groggily, trying to kick his brain into gear. “What’s up?”

She was quiet. The house was dark, the cat already snuggled in and purring. Eventually, she asked, “Is this enough?”

“Enough what?” he wondered.

“Enough for you,” she said very softly. “To be happy. Am I enough?”

 _That_ dropped a cold shock down his spine. “Whoa,” he said, the fog clearing, “where’s this coming from?”

She turned her face into the pillow, muffling her denial. “Nowhere. It’s nothing.”

He reached across the bed for her, tangling the sheets as he scooted closer. Hisako mewed and jumped away as the walls of her blanket canyon collapsed.

“Mako,” he murmured, finding her cheek with his palm and pressing his forehead to hers. “Hey, you’re more than enough. You’re everything.”

“Not everything.” Her hands grasped his arms, she curled to slot her legs between his. “The whole world talks about when we’ll get married. Or start a family.”

Raleigh shook his head against hers. “I don’t care about what people talk about. The only thing that matters is what we want. You’re my copilot, right?”

“But there are no jaegers left to pilot!” she exclaimed, pushing him onto his back until she had his arms pinned. “Gipsy Danger is gone. So what does that make us?” She waited, holding herself above him, as if he would back down from her challenge and tap out.

Raleigh recognized the seed of Jake Pentecost’s rejection flowering into this new doubt. Sometimes he wanted to give that kid a hard kick in the ass.

He swore, “Mako, we’re _partners._ I’m in this for life, okay? We don’t need to be lovers. We don’t need anything else but us.”

Mako’s hands tightened, her nails digging into his wrists. She didn’t answer.

“All I need to know,” he told her fiercely, “is I love you and you love me. And I do know that. You know it, too, right?”

Those were the magic words. The tension drained out of Mako’s body, her head landing heavily on Raleigh’s shoulder. “Yeah, I know.”

“Good,” Raleigh said gently. After a few seconds, he tested his wrists against her grip. She let him go but resettled on top of him, her weight trapping his right leg and arm. He suggested, “Hey, next time you propose, can it be while the sun’s out?”

She pretended to be asleep, so he did, too.

\--

From the sidelines, Raleigh sees that Mako fights like a force of nature. A landslide, maybe. Always waiting for an opening, still and solid right up until she unleashes overwhelming force.

Ikeda fights more cleanly. Where Mako is fueled by her temper, Ikeda keeps a cool head. Her tight defense can block ten of Mako’s blows and return one or two, which is enough to score.

Mako prefers reaction over taking initiative, but nothing frustrates her more than an opponent forcing Mako into making the first move. Of course, knowing that hasn’t helped Raleigh much - he can never wait her out. They make each other impulsive.

The longer Ikeda stays on the defensive, the more wild Mako becomes. The day is being exorcised one hard strike at a time, Mako’s true emotions rising to the surface, dark stormclouds gathering and waiting to break.

Watching the two women spar makes Raleigh aware of how oafish and lumbering he’s become. His left hand fumbles and drops things for no reason, his left foot drags. He worries more than he likes to admit that undetected brain damage will suddenly cause new complications.

Mako is so young, still, and it’s all he can do to stay at her heels.

“A moment, Mori-san,” Ikeda calls at the end of a four-point set. “I noticed something odd. Can you show me again?”

It takes a few tries for Mako to recall what she had done that caught Ikeda’s eye. Mako is dripping sweat and a little shaky with adrenaline, but she imitates Ikeda’s deliberate precision as she demonstrates. The strike would have worked for a jō staff, but the hanbō is nearly a foot shorter.

“I suppose your jō training crossed over a little here,” Ikeda explains thoughtfully. “I would like to see you run through the kata.”

Raleigh uses Mako’s cane to stand up. Mako’s face softens and her chin wobbles just once before Mako brings them under control.

There’s no way Ikeda could have predicted the impact that misremembering her father’s hanbō instructions has on Mako. She practiced for so many hours to preserve that and still ended up with an imperfect copy.

Mako begins the kata with barely contained emotion. Raleigh can see tears brimming in her eyes. She’s teetering at the edge of a precipice, and she’s too stubborn to excuse herself from Ikeda’s lesson.

Ikeda politely ignores Mako’s agitation. “Ah, there,” she says mildly. “That’s wrong. Here’s the correct form.” She moves through one step forward, an upward block, a downward strike --

_\-- yes! This is what her father taught her, what she lost when --_

Raleigh knows what’s coming and jerks himself out of the memory, but Mako doesn’t. She flinches away from Ikeda and isn’t aware of her surroundings enough to keep her balance.

“Mori-san!” Ikeda cries in alarm.

Raleigh’s there to catch Mako and help her down to the mat. Her head lolls back into his arm, eyes wide and unfocused.

“Hey, Mako, let it go,” he soothes, giving her something to come back to. “Ground yourself in the present. It’s okay.”

Ikeda asks, “What can I do?”

“We just need a moment,” he assures her.

Within a span of seconds, Mako is able to squeeze Raleigh’s hand. She blinks and finds his face, reorienting herself.

Raleigh smiles. “Hey. Bad one?”

Mako nods. Everything from before Onibaba is particularly affective and complex. She connects with her body from head to toe, making a face and clenching her fists and curling her toes. When she releases her muscles, she shakily insists, “I’m okay. I can get up.”

He braces to let her lean on his shoulder as she climbs slowly to her feet, then picks up the cane and stands. This one is Mako’s, though. He doesn’t see the other cane on the mat.

Ikeda brought it over to the genkan, to give them space. She watches them approach, assessing Mako’s recovery with concern. Handing the cane to Raleigh with a bow, Ikeda apologizes, “I hope the lesson didn’t cause you too much distress, Mori-san.”

Mako returns her bow. “Please don’t worry. It’s a lingering effect from the War.”

When they have put their shoes back on and are saying goodbye, Ikeda says, “I hope I’ll see you both soon. We needn’t practice with hanbō again.”

“No,” Mako says, “I’m grateful for the lesson, Ikeda-sensei.” When her words reach her own ears, she closes her mouth so quickly her teeth click. Her eyes fly to Raleigh’s, the tears immediately welling up.

“We’ll be going now,” Raleigh tells Ikeda with false cheer, ushering Mako out the door quickly.

They won’t make it to the house, so Raleigh doesn’t even try. He brings Mako under the garden’s overspreading tree and she sinks down on the wooden fence and weeps.

At twenty-two, Mako has lost everything that mattered to her. Her Sensei is dead, her family is avenged, her brother is out of her reach.

Raleigh knows what it’s like; he was twenty-two when Yancy died. It took him years to find something else worth living for.

He holds her through the wracking, purgative sobs until she’s wrung out and quiet.

Mako’s facing down the idea that even after saving the world, there is still so much left to learn.

They walk home as the sun sets, Mako’s cheeks red and blotchy but dry.

\--

Someday soon, they will arrive home with time to prepare dinner. Raleigh will turn on pop songs while he cooks and Mako will tease him for knowing all the lyrics. Hisako will wind around Raleigh’s left leg, which is getting stronger and more reliable all the time, even if he can’t always be sure.

When they climb into bed, Mako will tell Raleigh, “I’m thinking about leaving the Corps.”

“Yeah?” he’ll ask, his heart in his throat.

“Sensei is gone,” she will explain, “and there are no more Kaiju. Without them, I’m not sure what the Corps is, anymore. I don’t - I don’t always like what I’m helping to build.”

Raleigh will hold his arm out for Mako to lay across, and Hisako will jump up to steal his pillow, and he’ll say, “I’ll follow wherever you want to go.”

**Author's Note:**

> From Gracicah:
> 
> Sources for music and sound effects:  
> Airplane Interior Ambience – Epidemic Ambience  
> Running Shoes Walk at Medium Pace on Carpet on Wood Floor – Hot Ideas Inc.  
> 日本の列車のドアチャイム Japanese Trains Door Closing and Opening Chime Compilation – NingSama Productions  
> Water Tap Sound – Epidemic Ambience  
> Weather Forecast in Japan - Tokyo - 19th of September 2019 - Japanese TV CM  
> Frying Pan, Oil Sizzling - Sound Effect (SFX) – Siimon Sounds  
> High Quality Helicopter Sound Effects – Isolation Music  
> Small Waves Sound – Epidemic Ambience  
> Japan: Outdoor Street Market Ambience with Heavy Crowd & Voices – Hot Ideas Inc.  
> Japan's Emperor Naruhito urges world peace in first public speech – CNA (for crowd noises)  
> Wood Baseball Bat Handle, Toss and Catch - The Hollywood Edge Sound Effects Library
> 
> Music: Ravel: Miroirs III. Une Barque sur L'Ocean - André Laplante.


End file.
